NORMAL, Ill. – The Colorado State women’s basketball team opened their road season with a 76-61 victory Saturday night at Redbird Arena.

The Rams improve to 3-1 on the year, their best start since the 2005-06 season. The Redbirds remain winless at 0-3. It’s the first time CSU won its road opener since 2003.

CSU and Illinois State were deadlocked in a battle until the final 8 minutes of play; that was when Gritt Ryder and Caitlin Duffy took over, increasing the Rams’ lead to 15 as the final seconds clicked off the clock. Ryder finished with 21 points, a career-high, while Duffy tallied her fourth consecutive game of the year in double figures with 14, making four shots from three-point range.

“(In the end) we just got a little more control of that game defensively,” commented Head Coach Ryun Williams. “We finally showed some patience in that second half.

The Rams shot 52.0 percent on the night, and 52.4 from beyond the arc. Sam Martin also scored double digits for CSU with 11, while adding a team-high seven rebounds. The team shot .929 from the charity stripe, converting 13 of their 14 attempts from the line.

“You could tell in our huddle, we just had a look in our eyes, ‘We’re going to win.’ We just keep finding a way. That’s a neat thing. We know we still have to put 40 minutes together, but we’re learning a lot,” said Williams.

Colorado State will continue its road trip with three games in three days following the Thanksgiving holiday at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Rainbow Wahine Showdown. The Rams will start the tournament against host-school Hawai’i on Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. MT.

“We were just too eager to score early,” added Williams. “We’ve just got to come out and learn to play early like we did late.”